Powdered alloys of main group elements and conductive powders such as carbon black have been used to make electrodes for lithium ion cells. Electrodes may be fabricated, for example, by mixing the powdered active ingredient with a polymeric binder such as polyvinylidene fluoride. The mixture may be prepared as a dispersion in a solvent for the polymeric binder, and coated onto a metal foil substrate. The resulting composite electrode may contain the powdered active ingredient in the binder, adhered to the metal substrate.
Lithium ion cell electrodes containing polyimide binders have been mentioned in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,468,571 (Fujimoto et al.), 5,888,672 (Gustafson et al.), 6,001,507 (Ono et al.), 6,723,432 B2 (Sugo et al.), 6,759,164 B2 (Palazzo et al.), 6,790,561 B2 (Gan et al.) and 6,797,019 B2 (Takeuchi et al. '019), U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. US 2003/0049535 A1 (Ohta et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,946,223 (Kusumoto et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,797,019 (Takeuchi et al. '868), U.S. Pat. No. 7,141,334 (Fukui et al.), US 2004/0062991 A1 (Fukui et al. '991) and U.S. Pat. No. 7,153,611 (Minami et al.), and Japanese Published Patent Application No. JP 11-102708 (Asahi Glass Co. Ltd.).